Elisha Cook Jr. – The Post-Noir Years

When last we left Elisha Cook Jr. in our journey through the great character actor’s life, he had just hit it big, becoming one of the most recognizable supporting actors in Hollywood due to his success in the noir boom of the 40s and 50s. Though he was doing noirs with regularity throughout the 40s, he never stopped doing other roles as well, and while he continued to the occasional noir in the 50s (including some of his best work in a role that was his personal favorite – George in Stanley Kubrick’s 1956 film, The Killing), he distanced himself somewhat from the genre and began to focus more on other types of film.

While he ventured into other genres, it’s worth noting that his roles stayed more or less the same. Cook still played the small, nervous sort who was more likely than not to get beat up, taken advantage of, or killed. This was demonstrated in two of his better known roles from the early 50s – Don’t Bother to Knock and Shane.

Don’t Bother to Knock is another example of why the legend grew inside Hollywood that appearing early in your career in a film alongside Cook would ensure your future super-stardom (Judy Garland in Pigskin Parade being a case in point). In this film, none other than Marilyn Monroe makes her feature debut (she had previously done only numerous small roles). Cook plays the concerned but rather ineffectual uncle of Monroe, who plays a deeply disturbed teenaged babysitter. In 1987, Cook relayed the following anecdote describing his first meeting with Monroe:

“She came up to me and said, ‘You’re going to play my uncle, right?'” Cook recalled.

“‘That’s right, Miss Monroe.’

“Then she looked at me and said, ‘No incest.'”

(quoted from “The Face is Familar; The Name is Elusive” Dec. 24, 1987, Chicago Tribune)

This may have been just good-natured ribbing, but it didn’t seem Marilyn’s character was taking any chances, and during the course of the film, she ends up knocking her kind-hearted guardian unconscious while his back is turned.

The following year, in 1953, Cook starred in what is probably his best known role of the 50s – Frank “Stonewall” Torrey in Shane. This role and many of his other roles in westerns did not depart drastically from those he had in noirs. He still was typically the sacrificial lamb in the waiting, the would be tough who can’t back up his bravado, the neurotic gunfighter who never sees it coming. As David Thomas describes in his 1995 Film Comment article “Junior,” Cook is in Shane primarily as “a setup, the obvious victim to demonstrate Jack Palance’s lethal authority.” Something that is not frequently noted of Cook’s work here and in several of his other roles, however, is his willingness to fight. Particularly as Torrey, Cook shows a nobility just in the fact that he is brave enough to stand up to a man that everyone else is afraid of. Cook may have always been on the losing end of things, but more often than not, it was not an end that simply rolled over and died.

Shane marked Cook branching off into different territory, and he would begin to do westerns fairly regularly for the next 25 years or so. He also began doing some horror films, including two Vicent Price films – The House on Haunted Hill and The Haunted Palace – although he didn’t do the horror genre quite as much as you might think, considering how well suited his naturally bug-eyed, cowardly face custom-fitted him for such roles (particularly in the melodramatic, somewhat campy Price pictures).

The main change to Cook’s career in the 50s, however, was his move into television. The growth of television attracted many Hollywood veterans, so this certainly wasn’t an uncommon move. But the new medium seemed a good fit for Cook. For one thing, the end of the studio system in Hollywood had a profound effect on supporting actors like Cook. In an interesting LA Times article from December 22, 2000, Stephen Farber explains that the studios of the 30s and 40s had not only stars under contract, but numerous supporting actors as well, which is why there were such terrific ensemble pieces during those years. Unfortunately, the end of the studio system led to increased power to the stars unwilling to share the limelight, and as a result, “secondary roles were smashed to smithereens.” Honestly, such a shift probably had only a minimal effect on an actor like Cook, who even in this new Hollywood environment, was talented and recognizable enough to continue to still find good supporting roles. And yet, Cook’s workmanlike approach to acting (he was often quoted as saying he didnt’ have the “privilege” of reading scripts; rather, guys would just call him up and tell him “You’re working tomorrow”) seemed very well suited for the quicker, cheaper production values of television. Other than an appearance on a 1955 Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode, I have not seen any of Cook’s earliest TV roles. Yet, it’s clear from the shows he was doing that he was still working in very much the same vein as he had done before (he was primarily taking roles in westerns and noir/detective type shows) just in a different medium.

And with these changes, the stage was set, more or less, for the remainder of Cook’s career. He continued to regularly do movies – including many quite good ones – but he would soon be doing much more work in television and would appear in many classic television shows, including Gunsmoke, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Star Trek, Batman, etc., etc. When we return to Cook in the final post in our series, we’ll take one last look at this Hollywood legend, reviewing some of his later acting roles and his lasting legacy.

Weinstein Company Announces Asian Film Fund

Apprehensive. . . I suppose that is the best way to describe my immediate reaction to the recent announcement that the Weinstein Brothers have launched a $285 million fund to invest in Asian film. (Here’s a link to the announcement for more details.)

Undoubtedly, it is thanks to folks like the Weinsteins and Quentin Tarentino (who is also heavily involved with this project) that Western audiences have had access to so many of the great Asian films that have come out in recent years. I have loved these films and should just be happy that several new similarly-themed films will be making their way into the pipeline.

On the other hand, a very large part of why I like foreign films – beyond the rather obvious reason that they offer a glimpse at other cultures – is that they are so not Hollywood, for lack of a better way to express it.  Much as people flock to indie films for the same reason, these films offer different perspectives than those normally offered in the mainstream American releases. Thus, it must give one pause when an annoucement like this one comes out, particularly when they’re saying that part of the intent of the new venture will be to add a “Western sensibility” to these Asian-themed films. Even though so much of the Weinsteins’ work with Miramax over the years demonstrated that they are not afraid of taking chances and going against the norm, it still makes one nervous to see that the rumored film possibilities being explored include a remake of the Kurosawa classic Seven Samurai and a live action version of Mulan, and that many actors being rumored to be involved include several notable non-Asian actors (I saw George Clooney’s name floating around in one article).

And so, while happy to see Asian cinema getting some of its much deserved recognition and that some more great films in the same vein might soon be coming out, this whole project does somewhat resemble mere exploitation of existing ideas by a Hollywood struggling to come up with its own original thoughts. With the talented names involved in these films, hopefully the results will be good. I just think it’s too early to tell and that there are certainly some reasons for concern. 

High Sierra (1941)

High Sierra is best known for being a pivotal film in Humphrey Bogart’s career. It was the last of his films where he received second billing (co-star Ida Lupino actually had top billing, as Warner Brothers was trying to capitalize on her popularity resulting from the previous year’s hit They Drive by Night), and it was the first film where he demonstrated to studio execs that he had real potential for success as a leading man. This film really captured Bogie on the cusp of super-stardom. In the next year, he would star in The Maltese Falcon, and the rest, as they say, is history.

And yet, High Sierra had so much else going for it as well. The credits for the film reads like a who’s who of studio-era Warner Bros. Legendary director Raoul Walsh was in the midst of perhaps the greatest span of his long career, being in the middle of a run with Warner that included such films as The Roaring Twenties, They Died With their Boots On, and Gentleman Jim. Executive producer Hal Wallis – one of the all-time greats – had already overseen many great films and was about to lead Warner to even greater heights in the early 40s. And as if having these men on board wasn’t enough, the script was written by a versatile and emerging film talent who was about to burst on the scene in a major way, John Huston.

The film itself follows a basic enough plot. Some strings are pulled to get notorious bank robber Roy Earle (Bogart) pardoned and released from jail. An operation is in place to have Earle head west, where he will lead a couple of younger thugs in one last big heist. In the company of his cohorts is a young lady named Marie (Lupino) who winds up being similarly minded to Earle in her yearning for freedom and independence. Such freedom finally looks like it might be attainable for both Roy and Marie, but will it be possible once their big job goes awry?

I often see the film described as an early film noir, but I’m not convinced of that. It certainly has a few noiresque elements and definitely would influence later noirs (consider the parallels between it and Huston’s later masterpiece, The Asphalt Jungle, for example), but I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a noir. In fact, to a fan of the hardboiled, tense atmospheres of the noirs to come, High Sierra probably seems somewhat over-sentimental and melodramatic.

I tend to like this film more than your average viewer – it’s one of my favorite Bogie films, in fact – and I think this difference of opinion is likely based upon the first two-thirds of the film. This part of the film is admittedly rather uneven and clunky, owing from a major subplot where Roy befriends a country family (headed up by Pa, played by Henry Travers) and, longing for the simpler life they represent, tries unsuccessfully to woo their daughter Velma (Joan Leslie). These scenes seem somewhat dated and a bit sappy. But to me, it’s this rather awkward subplot that makes the final third of the film that much more effective. Roy’s inability to start over with Velma not only clears the way for a romance to bloom between he and Marie, but it also is just another notch in a long row of disappointments. It symbolizes the rut that both of them feel they are forever stuck in. As a result, when Roy and Marie finally begin their ill-fated run from the police (not to mention from their past lives), there’s a certain desperate happiness to them, as if they understand that all their past attempts at legitimacy were failures and that this is their last shot at freedom. It’s like a breath of fresh air – not only for the characters, but oddly enough, for the viewers too, who are finally free of all those painful sitting room scenes with Pa and family and able to see Bogie and Lupino on their mad dash, which is what they’ve been wanting to see all along anyway.

Looking at Bogie’s screen romances, one might think of the various films he did with Bacall and think about their spark and style, or one might think of Rick and Ilsa in Casablanca and think of the couple’s nobility. Well, Roy and Marie’s romance is notable for quite another reason – its sincerity. The couple’s relationship seems honest and heartfelt and down to earth. You can’t help but start pulling for them. I won’t give away the ending, which Walsh filmed on location in the High Sierra mountains and contains some fantastic shots, but I will say that it’s a powerful ending that gets me no matter how many times I watch it. If you haven’t already, give High Sierra a chance, and you’ll understand how Warner Bros. knew that they had a new leading man on their hands.